On Oct. 20, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced plans to extend the span of its 24-hour online shopping festival to 24 days, starting from Oct. 21.

The one-day event has been held annually on Nov. 11 since 2009, celebrated with a variety of deals and discounts from Tmall. It achieved unexpected success with a combination of entertainment and consumption in 2015. This year, more entertainment elements will be added into the festival, including online broadcasts and VR, to enhance interaction with consumers. Additionally, Katy Perry has been named the global ambassador of the festival, and will perform at a gala event in Shenzhen to kick things off, according to People’s Daily Online. The festival has truly gone beyond online shopping, said Zhang Yong, the third CEO of Alibaba.

This year, the distribution scope of Tmall’s shopping festival will move beyond the Chinese mainland, enabling those living in Hong Kong and Taiwan to purchase high-quality goods. Alibaba has also made preparations to expand the shopping festival to Hong Kong.

Last year was considered to be the first year of Alibaba’s globalization, as over 7,700 brands and retailers from 53 countries and regions made their way onto Tmall in 2015. Zhang said that Alibaba is trying to help merchants in other countries with global commodity circulation.

Sales from Tmall’s shopping festival broke the world record last year, and many consumers are excitedly waiting to see how the site’s 2016 performance will compare.

Not long ago, Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba, claimed that the trend of e-commerce would be a combination of online and offline business. Zhang disclosed that nearly 100,000 shops will soon be digitized so as to join Alibaba’s platform.

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